Avendonian: Difference between revisions

'''Avendonian''' ([[w:endonym|autoglossonym]]: ''avendoniano''; <small>Avendonian:&nbsp;</small><span class="nowrap" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" style="font-family:Gentium,'DejaVu Sans','Segoe UI',sans-serif">[[IPA for Avendonian|[avendoˈni̯ano&#93;]]</span>) is a [[w:West Germanic language|West Germanic language]], with strong influence of [[w:Vulgar Latin|Vulgar Latin]]. It is the result of a prolonged contact among members of both regions after West Germanic merchants began traveling to and from the [[w:Western Roman Empire|Western Roman Empire]]. These connections—and the conquest by the Germanic tribes of the northern skirts of the Roman Empire—slowly formed a [[w:creole language|creole]] for mutual communication. Eventually, permanent settlements were established in what would become modern-day Avendonia, where Avendonian is primarily spoken, with official status.

The letters correspond almost one-to-one to their pronunciation. The Avendonian orthography is considered [[w:shallow orthography|shallow]] or [[w:phonetic orthography|phonetic]], as opposed to deep orthographies like [[w:French orthography|French's]]. The orthography features that do not follow the correspondence are:

Monosyllabic words like '''{{term|blio}}''' have the stress in their only syllable, but it is weaker than those in polysyllabic words unless emphasized. Enclitic and other unstressed personal pronouns do not affect stress patterns:

Longer words (four or more syllables) may receive secondary stress in the fourth-to-last syllable (i.e. two syllables before the main or primary stress):

* Avendonian is not a pro-drop language, like other Romance languages. In other words, the subject, which may or may not be a personal pronoun must appear in every sentence, except in relative clauses where the subject of both statements is the same.

* Avendonian has, as in the Romance languages, [[w:T–V distinction|T–V distinction]]. This distinction is lost in the plural. Formal second-person pronouns are always capitalized, in all forms, no matter the environment.

:: '''Bido ero, ce bi el name Side?''' “Excuse me, sir, what is your name?” (formal)

Some adjectives have a single form for all degrees, but the same effect is achieved by placing before them the adverbs '''{{term|mere}}''' and '''{{term|mesto}}'''. Some of these adjectives are indeclinable for etymological reasons (e.g. '''{{term|na}}''') or because of their nature as active participles (e.g. '''{{term|denemanti}}'''). '''Mesto''' however does inflect for gender and number, like a regular adjective.

Verbs are the part of speech that exhibits the most morphology in Avendonian. There are ten main tenses, three moods, six persons, and two numbers—passive participles inflect for gender too. Verbs in Avendonian are, in general, very regular except for a small set of verbs, which includes the [[w:Copula (linguistics)|copula]] '''{{term|sire}}'''.

Both Burgundian dialects feature historical diphthongs no longer extant in other dialects, where they merged with another vowel. [[w:Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] ''*ō'', ''*eu'' which gave {{angbr|u, i}} elsewhere, became {{angbr|uo, ie}} in the Burgundian dialects&nbsp;–&nbsp;for instance, '''{{term|buoce}}''' and '''{{term|friesare}}''' vs. central '''{{term|buce}}''' and '''{{term|frisare}}'''. They also share the presence of {{angbr|y}} /{{IPA|y}}/, descended from earlier ''*iu''; '''{{term|dydere}}''' (central '''{{term|didere}}''').

In addition, there is evidence of the existence of a [[w:pitch accent|pitch-accent]] system in North Adriatic Avendonian. Stressed syllables whose vowel evolved from a long vowel carries a rising [[w:tone (linguistics)|tone]] and causes the following vowel to be pronounced with a mid tone. Moreover, if the stressed vowel comes from a short vowel, but it is not followed by a historical [[w:consonant cluster|consonant cluster]] or [[w:geminate|geminate]], it carries a low falling tone. Vowels in any other environment are rendered toneless.